


Friends true and constant

by Sharpiefan



Series: The Shakespeare Series [3]
Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon, Regency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 20:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14626644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: A school-day in the life of Robbie Fitzgerald and his close friends





	Friends true and constant

_...By the Lord,_  
 _our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our_  
 _friends true and constant: a good plot, good_  
 _friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot,_  
 _very good friends. …_  
\- Henry IV Part 1, Act II Sc. III

**Eton, May 1793**

It was English, which was a toss-up, as far as Robbie was concerned, between being interesting for reading Shakespeare, or Milton, or something else, and being dull as ditchwater because of having to learn what the perfect tense was and when it should be employed in conversation, or learning to write yet another form of letter to someone. The last lesson had been how to address letters to various people of various ranks in Society and then how to address them within the body of the letter itself – the reply from home that Robbie had received after addressing his letter that evening had shone through with his father's humour at being addressed as 'Your Lordship' throughout a letter from his own eleven-year-old son.

As for writing to His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Robbie could not envisage doing that. _Ever._

He had spent the previous lesson, arithmetic, studiously avoiding the master's eye and desperately hoping that he would not be asked any question more complicated than reciting his twelve-times-table. Right now, though, he was paying attention, hoping that he would be called on – he enjoyed reciting Shakespeare, after all.

The masters all seemed to be conspiring today; the mathematics master _had _called on him, and the English master's cold gaze skipped right over him to light upon Sutcliffe, seated beside him on the hard school bench.__

__Sutcliffe flushed red, stood, and fixed his gaze on the corner of the blackboard. "Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. Pluck from the memory a... a..." The flush deepened and he trailed to a stop._ _

__"If you could pluck from your memory soon a speech you have committed to it, we should be infinitely obliged to you," the master said dryly, his cold blue gaze now needle-sharp. "Well?"_ _

__Sutcliffe squirmed. Below the level of the school-desk, Robbie prodded his leg gently. "Rooted sorrow," he muttered, keeping his head down lest he draw down unlooked-for wrath._ _

__"Rooted sorrow," Sutcliffe said, the prompt restoring the rest of the speech to his recall. He fumbled his way to the end and dropped to his seat with a thud as soon as he could._ _

__"For prep this evening, the first form will commit to memory 'To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow' from Act Five, Scene Five of Macbeth. I shall expect you all to be word-perfect by our next lesson. Fitzgerald!"_ _

__Robbie stood, his knees shaking a little._ _

__"As you cannot resist helping out your classmates, and knowing your family as I do, I shall presume that you already know it."_ _

__"Yes, sir."_ _

__"If you would care to recite for your classmates so that they know what it is they should concentrate on learning this evening?"_ _

___Robbie took a breath, fixed his eyes on the same corner of the blackboard Sutcliffe had employed earlier, and began, trying to emulate his father's way of speaking Shakespeare as much as he could. "She should have died hereafter;_  
There would have been a time for such a word.  
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,  
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day  
To the last syllable of recorded time,  
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools  
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!  
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player  
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage  
And then is heard no more: it is a tale  
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,  
Signifying nothing." 

__There was a pause at the end. Robbie twisted his fingers behind his back, hoping to somehow not incur further wrath. The glance he dared dart to the master's desk raised his hopes a little; the master was actually smiling, although when he spoke, his tone was as dry as ever._ _

__"Of course you know it already. I do not know why I am surprised. You may perhaps spend your time more profitably in learning 'O what a rogue and peasant slave am I' with the fourth form, which speech may be discovered in Act Two, Scene Two of Hamlet. You may sit."_ _

____

* * *

"What rotten luck," opined Rafe, once the trio was let loose after supper. Robbie had gathered them in the corner of the big schoolroom at prep, having first armed himself with a copy of _Hamlet_. Sutcliffe had commandeered it as soon as they had sat down, and was now turning rapidly to the speech set, to compare it to their own prep.

He counted the lines of each. "That's three times the length of ours, easily," he said, raking his fingers through his sandy hair.

Robbie shrugged. "I've got prep tonight, and tomorrow, and the weekend – and I find memorising Shakespeare easy. Anyway, that's guessing that he wants it done by the same time you need to know yours. I _can_ do it by then, but I'll know it better if he means to try me on it this time next week. I just hope that I don't get piled with another set of hexameters – though I've not had so many to do lately."

He grinned; it was only his friends' ability in mathematics that had helped him to keep his head above water there. While there were times he had to crib off them, it was more frequently that they had to explain things again, but the most usual help they offered was in casting an eye over his sums to see what he'd written down incorrectly this time.

"It was jolly rotten of him to call you, though," Rafe said to Sutcliffe, who had passed the Hamlet back to Robbie and opened his own Macbeth.

Sutcliffe offered a shrug. "I knew it all right, till he made me stand up to _say_ it. I forget everythin' when I have to actually recite it – I wish I could do it like _you_ , Fitzgerald."

"I wish I was as good at maths as either of you," Robbie replied, thanking his lucky stars that they hadn't been set any maths prep today. The worst he had was a Latin composition, and even that was mostly done.

"Cave," Rafe hissed, and they bent over their work until the prefect had stalked past. It was Hunstanton, looking for trouble. A famous cricketer he might be, but there was a ruthless streak shown to boys lower down the school that meant they avoided him as much as they could.

"What I wanna know is," Sutcliffe said, once the danger had passed, speaking lower than before, "'ow _do_ you learn it all, Fitzgerald – an' speak it so well? It's like watchin' a actor in a play, when you say it."

Robbie coloured a little; he was unused to such genuine praise from his peers that had more to do with learning than to do with sportsmanship. "I.. I don't know. Come home for the hols, though – my papa does it even better than me, you should see him do it."

Sutcliffe's mouth had fallen open, and Rafe's amused "Close your mouth, you'll catch flies!" went unheeded.

"D'you... d'you mean that?"

Robbie blinked. It had been a flippant remark, but he was unsurprised to find that he did mean the offer, truly.

"I'll ask when we write home on Sunday," he said, thinking quickly, and having to resort to counting on his fingers under the desk. Rafe, Sutcliffe, p'raps Kit – Falstone would come if Rafe did, of course. Hunstanton would probably come home with Surrey... it would be a lot of people and maybe his father would say no, or that they could only come for part of the hols. But didn't Sutcliffe have a sister? Maybe he'd only want to come for part of the hols, anyway, where Robbie knew Rafe and Falstone would stay the whole hols if they could. Anyway, Kit would probably only come for part of the hols, so the part that he wasn't in Yorkshire for, Sutcliffe could be.

If Lord Rotherham would say yes – and Robbie didn't really think he wouldn't.

"Father doesn't bite, you know," he added, taking in the stunned look on his friend's face. "Ask Rafe."

"He's hardly likely to bite the son of a _Duke_ ," Sutcliffe pointed out, before bending studiously over his own Latin comp as Hunstanton stalked back the other way.

" _Younger_ son – though Falstone was with us, too." Rafe had started doodling on the corner of his paper, and Robbie elbowed him.

"You're not giving that in, in that state, are you? Cross-Eyes'll go cross-eyed an' give you hexameters for months!"

 

"Bother." Rafe reached for a clean sheet of paper to transfer his half-completed work to.

"Are you sure, though, Fitz?" Sutcliffe was still trying to get his head around the fact that his friend, the son of an Earl, was willing to invite him home for the summer, or part of the summer at least, which would mean his meeting the Earl at least once – he honestly didn't think he could spend several weeks in someone's home without meeting the master of the house, even if the house was enormous, which it probably was.

"I'm _sure_. Cross my heart and hope to die dead certain-sure."

"What if 'e says no?"

Robbie looked up from his scrawled Latin and blinked at his friend in frank astonishment. "You're at school at Eton, right?"

Sutcliffe nodded.

"You're my friend, right?"

Another nod.

"I've had friends to stay before, right?"

"The sons of a Duke..."

" _Right_?"

A sigh, and a nod.

"He won't say no." Robbie grinned. " _I_ like you – ergo, _he'll_ like you. Anyway, we'll be out of his way as much as we can." He couldn't quite believe that anyone could be in so much awe of an Earl who was, as yet, only a figment of that someone's imagination, and he couldn't think of any of his school-friends that Rotherham would take a set against – his friends were his friends because he liked them, because they had qualities that he liked and admired. If he was going to take a set against anyone, surely it would've been against Hunstanton, Surrey's friend?

"I'll write him after Chapel on Sunday," he said decisively and turned back to his Latin. "Either of you remember the past participle of _videre_?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hexameters' - Copying out Latin hexameters was a common punishment at Eton. Miscreants were frequently set 100 hexameters by Library members (members of the senior year); I don't see why masters would not have done the same for offences that did not merit an actual whipping. 'Cave', pronounced 'cavey', came into English from the Latin for 'beware'.


End file.
